Today my midwife came for her monthly visit, and after the usual interesting conversations that we have, we finally got to the checking the size of the baby part. As she was taking out her measuring tape, I asked her, “I already know what the answer to this will be and feel silly answering since of course the answer is no, but my kids wanted to know, so I’m asking. Is there any possibility we could have twins this time?” (They were hoping during my last pregnancy, too!) So she said, “Well, let’s see,” and proceeded to take the fundal measurements.

I was absolutely positive that that would be the end of it all and the answer would be a definitive ‘no’, but to my surprise she made a ‘hmm’ sound and told me that I’m measuring at 28 weeks (I’m 23 weeks). I asked if that could be just because I haven’t eaten as well as I usually do and gained more weight than usual, and she said no. I asked how significant the difference in measurements is, and she said it’s significant. She spent a lot of time listening to the heartbeat, trying to determine if she was hearing two heartbeats or hearing one heartbeat from two different positions. She couldn’t say definitively, but said in another month it should be obvious if we are just seeing one baby who went through a big growth spurt right now or there are two babies, but that I should start eating extra protein in case it is twins.

Well, that was kind of a surprise (a nice one, though)! I have no family history of twins and hadn’t even considered the possibility at all. It would certainly explain why I’m looking noticeably more pregnant than usual! Usually people can’t even tell I’m pregnant until 8+ months, and now it’s already starting to be obvious at 5 months. It’s nice to think of having something else to pin the extra weight gain on, but I’m going to suspend any thoughts one way or the other until we know for sure. I’m at the stage in my life and parenting that twins is a really nice thought, in any event.

I told my kids what the midwife said (because they asked me why dh had a funny look on his face :)), and they immediately started planning what baby gear we would need for two babies, even though I firmly told them we really don’t know at all yet and in a month could find out there’s just one. I happened to have been given a huge amount of gorgeous baby girl clothing on Sunday by a first time mom who had seven baby showers, and received lots more clothes than her baby could ever wear. I have no idea if we’re having a girl or boy (we wait until we see the actual baby to find out), but if we end up having twin girls, we would certainly be set for the first 9 months for clothing! 🙂

I’m sure you can imagine what we’ll be wondering about for the next month. 🙂

Avivah